Father Unknown (20 page)

‘You look mortified,’ Will said, and touched her bare arm. ‘I can’t count the number of times one of my friends has done that to me, or the number of times I’ve been the one puking. It doesn’t matter, Josie, it’s just one of those things.’

Shamefaced, Josie hung her head. ‘I suppose I’d better get her home,’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘I just wish you hadn’t had to see it.’

‘Which way do you have to go?’ he asked.

‘Down along the harbour. Her parents own a guesthouse,’ she said.

‘Well, we’ll walk with you, won’t we, Colin?’ Will said. ‘Can’t leave a couple of damsels in distress, can we?’

Josie got the distinct impression that Colin would sooner have jumped in the harbour than walk home with a drunken girl, for his smile was forced, but he gallantly went into the pub, got a large glass of water and took it over to Rosemary, making her swill her mouth out, and then drink the rest. As he came back with her he suggested they get her a cup of coffee.

Rosemary seemed quite recovered after a few minutes’ walk, and Will bought each of them a takeaway cup of coffee from the fish and chip shop further down the High Street.

‘Tell me what you two are doing in Falmouth,’ Josie asked. Her embarrassment was fading now, and she hoped she’d be able to pluck up courage and ask them to join her and Rosemary on the beach the following day.

‘Colin works for a shipping company in London,’ Will said. Colin was in front of them now, holding Rosemary’s hand and laughing about something with her. ‘He had to check out an insurance claim, I just came with him for the ride.’

‘Well, what do you do?’ she asked.

‘I’m a designer,’ he said.

Josie’s ears pricked up at that. ‘A fashion designer?’

Will laughed. ‘No, I design shop and hotel interiors mostly. Why, do you want to be a fashion designer?’

Josie giggled. ‘Not me, I can’t draw a straight line. But I intend to be a fashion model.’

He stopped her short under a lamp-post, putting his hand on her chin and moving her head this way and that. ‘Umm,’ he said eventually. ‘I think you could be.’

‘I will be,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘I’m going up to London next year to start.’

‘Why wait a year?’ he said. ‘It’s all happening now in London. A pretty girl like you could easily get a job in one of the new boutiques. Get a portfolio together, do the round of the agencies. I’m sure someone would take you on.’

Josie had no idea what a portfolio was, but she wasn’t going to show her ignorance. ‘You really think so?’ She beamed at him.

‘I think you stand a better chance than most girls,’ he said.

They sat on the harbour wall drinking their coffee, smoking and chatting for some time. The men were staying at the Royal Hotel, and the casual way they spoke of it was evidence they were used to staying in expensive hotels. Will said he lived in a part of London called Bays-water, and he laughed when Josie asked if it was on the river. He said if she ever came to London he’d show her the sights.

A little later they walked on home to Rosemary’s house and it was Josie who asked if they wanted to come to the beach with them the following day.

‘That would be very nice,’ Will said, putting his arm around Josie and squeezing her to him. ‘We had planned to stay until the evening and drive home once the roads are clear. A day on the beach with you two would be lovely.’

‘They’re a bit posh!’ Rosemary said in a whisper as they made their way up the stairs to her room. ‘They didn’t even try to snog us.’

Josie thought that made it all the better, to her it was a sign they were gentlemen. But she wasn’t going to make her friend start giggling by saying that. ‘I expect it was because of you throwing up,’ she said. ‘Would you kiss anyone after that?’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Rosemary said once they were up in her room. ‘One minute I was all right, the next everything was spinning. I reckon it was those beefburgers Mum gave us for tea.’

Josie said nothing. All she wanted to do was get into bed and dream about Will. If he did turn up at Swanpool beach tomorrow as they’d arranged, she was going to make sure he wanted her enough by the end of the day to invite her up to London.

Chapter Nine

By four the following afternoon Josie had decided that she was going to London that night with Will and Colin. They didn’t know yet, and neither did Rosemary, but Josie had it all planned in her head and she had counter-arguments ready for anyone who might oppose her.

Will and Colin were already at Swanpool beach when the girls arrived, a clear sign to Josie that they fancied them. She felt smugly certain that by the end of the day Will would be smitten with her, for the beach was the perfect place to show off all her best features.

Since she was a small child Josie had adored the sea and the feeling of freedom wearing so few clothes. She and Ellen often swam naked down at the little cove by the farm. By the time she was twelve and her breasts began to develop, nearly all of Josie’s friends became self-conscious about their bodies. But not her. She felt only delight for it meant she was finally becoming a woman.

There were a few moments of anguish, mainly when she looked at her mother’s flabby, shapeless body, and feared hers might become like that. But luckily it seemed that she, like Ellen, had inherited Pengelly traits, for they were both slim and shapely, with long legs.

Another reason Josie felt comfortable on a beach was because she could shed the unfashionable clothes that marked her out as a poor farmer’s daughter. In a swim-suit she could compete, and win on all levels. Even her curly hair, which she so often wished could be straight, was an asset on the beach, for girls’ hair she so often admired at school looked like seaweed once it was wet. Hers went into pretty ringlets. And she wasn’t burdened with the normal curse of red-heads, skin that became red and freckly in the sun. Both she and Ellen had always turned a golden-brown painlessly.

Academic success meant nothing on a beach either. Josie could swim like a fish, run fast, do leap-frog effortlessly, and she was good at ball-games. The beach was a stage to show off all these talents.

In the early hours of the morning when Josie couldn’t sleep for thinking about Will, she had remembered something she’d read in ‘Dear Marge’ in
Woman’s Own.
A girl had written in to ask how to make boys like her. Marge had said there was no magic formula for this, but that she thought showing happiness, both in the boys’ company and her own surroundings, was likely to endear her to them rather than trying to pretend she was something she wasn’t.

Josie had followed that advice once she’d made up her mind that she wanted to go to London. She didn’t attempt to flirt with Will or Colin, or have serious conversations, but treated them in much the same way she did her schoolfriends and boys she knew from the village. She splashed them with water, jumped on their backs in the sea, challenged them to races, laughed a great deal and acted as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

Rosemary unwittingly helped her cause. In the past Josie had been embarrassed at the way her friend would speak of her parents’ farm in awed tones, as if they were stinking rich. But this time Josie was glad of it, for it gave her the opportunity to make the men laugh still more by talking in a rustic voice and making out she did the milking and mucked out the cow sheds. If they wanted to believe she was talking nonsense, she didn’t mind, she’d told the truth after all. It was Rosemary who lied and said she was seventeen and worked in an office in Truro. Josie just said she helped her father, and if they imagined she was seventeen too, that was their fault.

The men bought them fish and chips for lunch, later they paddled in rock pools looking for crabs, and as the afternoon went on Josie sensed Will really liked her. He kept taking her hand as they paddled; he looked right into her eyes, and paid her compliments.

It was a little disappointing that he hadn’t turned out to be as handsome as she’d thought on the previous night. Without his smart clothes there wasn’t anything special about him. He had a nice enough face, and lovely dark eyes, but he was hardly a real dreamboat. His chest was pale and weedy, and his legs were very thin. He was also more serious than she’d expected, he spoke of books and films that she’d never heard of, and she discovered he’d got a degree in Art and Design, which made her think he was a bit of an egg-head.

Yet when he drew her away from the other two behind a big rock and kissed her, it made her head reel and her legs go all wobbly.

‘You must come up to London soon,’ he said, holding her face in his hands and showering it with soft little kisses. ‘Promise me you’ll keep in touch. I must see you again.’

She looked into his brown eyes and knew this was the moment. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t really handsome, he was clever and had such good manners and a perfect-speaking voice, and he could kiss really well.

‘I could come to London with you tonight,’ she blurted out.

She half expected him to back away, but instead he laughed. ‘Now, what would Rosemary say about that?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you staying the weekend with her? It would be a bit rude.’

Josie laughed in relief, his good manners hadn’t failed him, not even in a tight spot. ‘She wouldn’t mind if I explained to her,’ she said. ‘You see, I’ve been wanting to go to London for so long, she won’t come with me for another year. I’m doing nothing here; I could find real work in London. So if you’d give me a lift and let me sleep at your place until I find one of my own, I’d be so grateful.’

He gave her a rather worried look, and it occurred to her that he’d imagined her only coming up to London for a few days, not permanently. ‘But what about your parents?’ he said. ‘You can’t shoot off and leave them without a word.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ she lied. ‘I thought I’d tell Rosemary when we get back to her place, then go home and tell Mum and Dad. I could meet you later this evening.’

His forehead wrinkled into a deep frown. ‘Isn’t it a bit rash, rushing off up there now?’

Josie shrugged. ‘It was a bit rash talking to you last night, but it worked out all right, didn’t it? Besides you said there’s loads of jobs for a girl like me in London. I ought to be there now when it’s all beginning to happen. Of course, if you don’t want to take me –‘she broke off, leaving it up to him.

He sighed. ‘It’s not that, Josie, of course I don’t mind taking you,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t expect something like this, and I work away a lot, so you’d have to find your way around on your own. My flat’s a bit of a tip too.’

‘Well, I can clean it up for you.’ She grinned and leaned forward to kiss him. ‘I don’t mind being on my own. I’ve lived in an isolated farm all my life, remember. I’ll surprise you by how clever I can be.’

He still looked doubtful. ‘Are you absolutely set on this, Josie?’

‘Of course I am. If it doesn’t work out I’ll just catch the train back.’ She grinned again. ‘No strings as they say. I’m not asking you to take care of me, Will, only a lift and a place to sleep till I get somewhere of my own.’

She saw the anxious expression fade from his eyes, and knew she’d hit just the right note.

‘Okay,’ he nodded. ‘If you’re sure.’

‘Don’t say anything to Colin in front of Rosemary,’ she urged him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. ‘She might get funny and say she wants to come. She can be a bit silly that way, and by tomorrow she’ll be regretting it. I’ll tell her when we’re on our own.’

He nodded, and she thought that pleased him even more as Rosemary hadn’t really hit it off with Colin. They didn’t seem to have anything to say to each other, and Colin seemed a bit irritated when she kept giggling.

‘I’ll meet you at nine at the hotel. But if you aren’t there on time we’ll go without you!’ he said warningly.

‘I’ll be there,’ she said, and smiled. She meant she’d be there come hell or high water.

At eight-thirty Josie was lurking in an alley near the hotel, carrying her suitcase. She didn’t want to bump into anyone she knew. The enormity of what she was about to do and what she’d already done was overwhelming.

She hadn’t told Rosemary the truth, she couldn’t because she knew her friend would try to talk her out of it and ask her to wait a year till they could go together. She also didn’t want anyone else to know she’d gone off with two men she’d known for less than twenty-four hours.

Josie was a bit ashamed of what she’d done to give Rosemary the slip. She behaved perfectly normally until they got home to her house, chatting about the day, laughing about Will and Colin, and discussing the dance they were planning to go to later. Then Josie began playacting the minute they got in, she said she had this feeling there was something wrong at home, and she must go back there to see.

Rosemary kept trying to persuade her there couldn’t be anything wrong, and Josie pretended she was being convinced as she had a bath and washed her hair. But the minute she was dressed again, she said the feeling was getting stronger and she must go, she promised if there was nothing wrong she’d get the bus straight back. Mrs Parks backed her up and said Rosemary was being selfish, she even said she wished her husband were home so he could drive Josie there. Finally, at half past six, Josie left the house carrying her suitcase, with Rosemary yelling from the doorway she must come straight back, and if there was something wrong she must go to a phone box in the morning and ring her.

Josie felt so silly skulking around the back streets and she was tempted to go straight to the hotel right then, but common sense told her that wasn’t a good idea. Will might realize she hadn’t had time to go home to tell her parents, and it would give him enough time to change his mind.

At ten to nine Josie walked up to the hotel. It was still very light, and there were so many people around she felt even more nervous, but as she approached the door of the hotel, Will was coming out with a holdall in his hand.

His face lit up. ‘I didn’t think you’d really come,’ he said. ‘What did your parents say?’

Josie shrugged. ‘They thought I was being a bit daft rushing off on a whim, but they weren’t nasty or anything. Everyone leaves here at my age. Tourists only see the good bit in the summer, there’s nothing much here the rest of the year.’